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IN • LOVING -MEMORY- OF 
THE REVEREND 

JAMES^BRAINARD GOODRICH 

MAY- 10 1840 
MAR- 22-1913 

BLESSED ARE • THE • PURE • IN ■ HEART 



THE TABLET IN S. JAMES'S CHURCH. 






A SERMON 



COMMEMORATIVE OF 



The Reverend 
JAMES BRAINARD GOODRICH 



PREACHED IN 



S. JAMES'S CHURCH, BURKEHAVEN, N. H. 
ON SUNDAY, JULY 6, 1913 



BY 



LUCIUS WATERMAN, D. D. 






■5>oi^M<^ 



RUMFORD PRESS 
CONCORD, N. H. 



S. James iii, 13. Who is a wise man and under- 
standing among you? Let him show by his good 
life his works with meekness of wisdom. 



I. 

HERE is a Text from a letter of S. James, 
and I want to begin with saying a very 
few words about the writer of my Text. The name 
of S. James has come, I am sure, to be a very dear 
name to those of us who have attended Services 
in this Church, summer after summer. But there 
are three S. Jameses who appear before us in the 
New Testament, and while all three have some- 
thing about them that is interesting and memorable, 
I hold that the one who wrote the letter should 
be of all of them the best remembered and the best 
loved, our own S. James especially. 

He was not one of the original Apostles, if I read 
his story aright. He is described as "the Lord's 
brother," which means that he was one of that 
little group of near kinsmen (probably cousins) of 
our Lord, of whom S. John tells us that even His 

[71 



brethren did not believe on Him. This kinsman 
who could not believe that one of his own family 
connection was the promised Messiah — I venture 
to guess that it was humility, and not meanness, 
that made it so hard for him to see that something 
near to him was something great — seems probably 
to be also the James to whom our Lord appeared 
after His resurrection, as noted by S. Paul. After 
that He was seen of James, then of all the Apostles 
(i Cor. xv, 7). When S. Paul wrote those words, 
our James had become an Apostle, and was the 
most conspicuous James in the whole Church. At 
any rate, whether our Lord appeared to him 
especially or no, our S. James became a believer, 
and was added to the number of the Apostles, like 
S. Paul and S. Barnabas. Then within a few years 
he was assigned to the charge of the Church in 
Jerusalem, so that he became the first example of 
an Apostle localized, performing the duties of what 
we now call a Diocesan Bishop. 

Preaching from S. James's Epistle, in S. James's 
Church, I like to tell his story in few words, and it 
seems to me an interesting story. But certainly 
the thing which gives him his special claim upon 
our respect and love is his Epistle, his letter, in 
simpler phrase, written to certain Jewish Chris- 
tians of his day. Simplest phrases suit our S. 
James best. He was a man of simple phrases, a 

[81 



simple and practical man. That should give him 
and his wise letter a certain special power of appeal 
to the men of to-day. He was a practical man, and 
ours is a practical age. Indeed, it may be said 
that our age worships efficiency. Sometimes it 
worships efficiency more than it worships God. 
But here comes S. James to teach us better than 
that. A man may pride himself on being practical, 
and yet not know how to make the best of himself 
after all. S. James did know how. He was wise 
enough to value efficiency. He was also wise 
enough to measure efficiency in terms of divine 
service. In S. James's view men owed themselves 
to God, to serve Him well, and if they did not pay 
their debt in fulness of service, they were making 
of life a ghastly failure. 

It is a besetting temptation of the strong in all 
ages to value efficiency for its own sake, or for 
their own sake, selfishly, and to be very little 
concerned as to what is, or is not, effected, so long 
as they accomplish what they call prosperity for 
themselves. I have indicated that our own age 
is especially zealous for what it considers efficiency. 
I add now that it seems to regard efficiency as 
having two arms, knowledge and wealth. Knowl- 
edge is the left arm, the arm of direction. Wealth 
is the right arm, the arm of power. In face of 
such notions, I beg you to observe that S. James, 

[9l 



the Apostle of the practical, the man who, more 
than any other New Testament writer, fixed his 
eyes on efficiency as a measure of success, was 
certainly afraid of both these forces, which seem 
to us so beneficent and so much to be desired. 
To him the service of God was the one true end 
of life. Efficiency that did not conduct men to 
that great end was no efficiency. But behold! to 
be rich in anything, — in money, in knowledge, in 
power, in special gifts, — was just so much of burden 
and difficulty in the way of a real efficiency, because 
it increased by just so much the insidious tempta- 
tion of selfishness. And selfishness is not self- 
protection, according to our practical-minded 
Apostle. Selfishness is self-destruction, and noth- 
ing else. 

And yet S. James does not think of asking any 
man to refuse any wealth that comes to him 
naturally. Wealth of any kind is a means to some 
of God's great ends, if it be used in God's way. 
Only S. James would have men remember that to 
be made responsible for having wealth, of any of 
God's gifts, is a very solemn thing. He begins 
the section of his letter from which my Text is 
taken with a warning to men who have large 
gifts of knowledge and leadership. My brethren, 
be not many masters, we have been in the habit of 
reading, — My brethren, be not many masters, know- 

[10] 



ing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. 
But "master" in the English of three hundred 
years ago carried the idea of "teacher," as it does 
not now, and for modern ears the American 
Revision makes S. James's meaning far more clear, 
— Be not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing 
that we shall receive heavier judgment. 

Be not many of you teachers, my brethren. "If you 
feel that you have gifts which might be used for 
guiding other people," is his idea, "be not eager 
to rush into that great responsibility, but bethink 
yourselves what a responsibility it is. We all make 
mistakes. We all fall into sins. What are we 
that any of us should put ourselves forward to 
teach others the way to God?" Then the Apostle 
goes on to give his memorable instruction about the 
danger of sins of the tongue, and (by implication) 
the perils of those who would make much speaking 
the very business of their lives. But withal he 
recognizes that some men have gifts given them 
for just that work. Such men are responsible for 
using their gifts. They are called to be rich. Then 
they cannot help themselves. They may not bury 
their talent in the earth. To these S. James 
addresses himself in the words which I have taken 
for a Text. It is an awful thing, the Apostle has 
been saying, to make one's self a guide of men. 
To those whom God has called to that work there 

tni 



is just one thing to be said, to guide them into 
efficiency in that work. Who is a wise man and 
understanding among you ? Let him show by his 
good life his works with meekness of wisdom. Let 
us take that solemn admonition bit by bit, and 
examine it with care. 



[12] 



II. 

WHO is wise and understanding among you? 
S. James asks, and I am sure that there 
is no trace of sarcasm here. The Apostle knows 
that God has made some of His children rich in 
these gifts of guidance, and it is to such, and not 
to any shallow pretenders, that these words are 
intended to be addressed. Who is wise and under- 
standing among you? Two noteworthy gifts are 
here indicated. Wisdom is a very great word of 
the older Scriptures. There is a group of Books 
(Canonical and Apocryphal) which make so much 
of it that they are called "the Wisdom Books." 
If I understand that teaching about wisdom which 
the New Testament writers inherited from the 
older writers and carried on, the wise man is he 
who has the ability tc distinguish between great 
and small values all through life, and the settled 

[13] 



habit of choosing the greatest values, and not 
giving them up to go in pursuit of lesser ones. 
What S. James means by an understanding man, 
or as the King James Version has it, one endued 
with knowledge, is not so clear. It is a knowing 
man somehow. The word is closely connected 
with the Greek word for "a science." I get the 
impression that S. James's understanding man is 
not merely a " knowing" man, who knows many 
things perhaps unrelated, but "one who knows 
his subject," having his facts in good order, or (as 
we say) "one who knows the business of life." To 
know the business of life practically, and to have 
wisdom to see and choose the highest things, — that 
is a very great condition with which to enter 
upon one's course through life. It ought to lead 
to great results. S. James felt so. He felt that it 
was worth while to tell a man so gifted the way 
to the very highest outcome of his life. He here 
points out that way. If any man has such wisdom 
and knowledge as that, he will be a good man. 
That may be assumed. He will lead a good life. 
Of that, also, there can be no doubt. But if he 
is to make the very best of his splendid oppor- 
tunity of endowment, let him out of his good life 
show his works, his fine fruit of good results, in 
meekness of wisdom. Meekness is here the em- 
phatic word. Wisdom has been assumed already. 

in] 



If he is to have the very highest result, he must 
have meekness of wisdom. My subject for to-day 
is The Crowning of the Meek Man as a Prince 
among the Wise. 

Who is this "meek man" that he should be thus 
a prince? The meek man is he who never makes 
too much of himself nor asks too much for himself. 
And seeing that none of us are great servants of 
God, and none of us have really deserved great re- 
wards from God, my definition carries with it that 
he who is meek among us as well as wise will not 
make of himself, nor ask for himself, much. For 
such a meek man I venture to claim a double 
crown, — a crown of happiness and a crown of ser- 
vice. I ask your attention to some thoughts 
concerning each of these crownings, wherewith 
he is ennobled of God. 

(a) And, first, there is the crown of happiness. 
Blessed are the meek, says our Lord in the Sermon 
on the Mount, — Blessed are the meek: for they shall 
inherit the earth. S. Augustine, reading the promise 
in Latin, in which the same word was used for 
"earth" and "land," interprets this "land" which 
the meek are to possess as the land of the living, 
the earth which shall be also Heaven, when our 
Lord comes again to raise the dead. But the same 
S. Augustine saw also a deeper truth in these words. 
"The faithful man," he said, "is a whole world of 

[15] 



wealth; but the unfaithful is not worth a single 
farthing." The fact is that the meek man regards 
all the world as God's world. He does not ask 
for more than his share of God's world. He does 
not worry himself as to how much that share shall be. 
He tries to do his work well, and fill his place well, 
and then he takes what comes to him as God's 
gift; and seeing in everything that comes God's 
gift, he is for everything grateful, and perceives 
that everything is good. Asking for nothing but 
what God wills to give him, he has always what he 
asked for, and is always contented, always thank- 
ful. Happy in what God gives him the meek man 
enjoys all his Father's world. Though his personal 
portion may seem to men but scant, he inherits 
the earth, and has the real use and enjoyment of it, 
while it is all covered with legal titles of other men. 
And do not suppose that his actual receiving 
must be small. Nay, the meek man has a magic 
attraction for good things. He draws love toward 
him, and the gifts of love, and be ye sure that the 
gifts of love bring a real happiness, where the 
spoils of selfish warfare bring only a glittering show. 
Come unto Me, says our Lord, offering relief to all 
human wretchedness in its two chief lines, hard- 
ness of work and heaviness of sorrow, — Come unto 
Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest. How, then, does He propose 

[16I 



to give rest from all unhappiness? Look for your- 
selves at His next words. Take My yoke upon you, 
and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; 
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. When men 
learn to be meek, in that very learning they find 
rest. He who crowns himself with the patient 
meekness of the Son of God, crowns himself also 
with the happiness of the Son of God. 

(b) But a godly man cannot be happy unless 
he is doing God service in God's way. His crown- 
ing of happiness could by no means be kept safe 
for him, unless he had a crowning of service, too. 
And lo! it is precisely the meek man for whom 
the crowning of service is secure, and holds his 
happiness secure. For efficiency in any line of 
work depends upon wisdom in that line of work, 
and a man cannot have any great wisdom for the 
service of God without having much of meekness 
and lowliness of mind. Wisdom, I said, a while 
ago, is the capacity for distinguishing between 
great values and small ones, with the habit of 
preferring always the greater values to the lesser. 
You can see that if a man thinks too much of 
himself, or asks too much for himself, that conceit 
or that self-seeking will be in danger of distorting 
all the values in God's world for that man's poisoned 
mind. The man who makes himself too large a 
figure in his own thoughts must necessarily make 

[17] 



God Himself too small. For such a man no 
delicate measuring of other men's rights, or accom- 
plishments, or needs, or sins, or sorrows, or mis- 
takes, is possible. He cannot measure his world 
in which he lives with our Lord's measure. He 
cannot touch the world's needs with our Lord's 
hand. But the meek man has the very character 
of his Master. He can think the thoughts of his 
Master. So it comes to pass that he can do the 
deeds of his Master. And here it may be said 
that no wisdom taken alone could enable a man 
to do the service which the Lord sent him to do 
in supplying a sick world's needs. Meekness 
makes a man finely wise to see what ought to be 
done; but there is a further need, and even greater. 
Meekness cleanses a man also from the irritation 
of selfishness, as the surgeon cleanses hands and 
tools before touching an open wound. The world 
is sick and sore with selfishness of its own, and a 
selfish man cannot touch its sensitive places 
without doing more harm than good. The meek 
man is able to be an efficient minister of Christ, 
because in that selfless meekness of his he can 
touch all human weakness tenderly. 



18 



III. 

AN efficient minister of Christ!" Every Chris- 
tian man and woman ought to be that, and 
ought to learn meekness so as to be able to be 
that. But S. James was thinking particularly 
of those who were called to be teachers and guides 
of others in the dangerous responsibility of Holy 
Order in the Kingdom of God. And so have I 
been thinking all this time, and so have you, 
waiting for me to get by all generalities, perhaps 
a little impatient of having Scripture expounded, 
or duties preached, — and yet I felt bound, as a 
commissioned teacher, to do both these things, 
even on a day like this, — when we were all waiting 
for some expression of a loving remembrance of 
which our hearts are overflowing full. 

We are offering to God, to-day, a Memorial of 
the Rev. James Brainard Goodrich, who was Rector 

[19] 



of Trinity Church, Claremont, and had charge of 
pastoral ministrations in this neighborhood, when 
this church was built, and who has been the friend 
and guide and really the pastor of the congrega- 
tions worshipping here from then until just now. 
He was a man so modest and so shy of praise 
that I am almost shy of standing here and praising 
him. I have never known any other good man, 
I think, who would have been quite so much sur- 
prised, if in his life- time he could have had a vision 
of what men would say of him after he was gone. 
It is told of a great English Bishop,* that a mem- 
ber of a Sisterhood, coming to him for spiritual 
counsel, allowed herself to ask him if he had always 
been humble. "My dear!" was the Bishop's 
answer, "I have never been humble in my life!" 
That is the way with the humble and meek. They 
learn deeply that no man can measure himself 
aright, and they give up trying to measure them- 
selves. In fact, their one anxiety is not to think 
of themselves too highly, and so they do not often 
think of themselves at all, which is generally an 
admirable rule of life. But here is a man whom 
I have known particularly closely, and / can say 
of him with confidence, that he was wise enough 

*The Rt. Rev. Robert Gray, Bishop of Capetown and 
Metropolitan of South Africa, 1847-1872. Life, Vol. II. p. 
449, n. 

[20] 



to be very meek, and meek enough to be very 
wise. 

In all his priesthood our friend had just five 
charges, — Nashua and Lancaster in New Hamp- 
shire, Windsor in the old Diocese of Connecticut, 
where he was born and reared and educated, and 
where also he was prepared for the Ministry and 
ordained Deacon and Priest, and then Claremont 
and Littleton in New Hampshire again, the Diocese 
of his adoption. The five charges suggest to me 
the five fingers of the clasping hand, with which 
the good man lays hold on duty firmly. The duty 
may burn, it may freeze, it may sting, the sensitive 
hand. It always does. A good man does not 
complain of these things, and certainly he does 
not for any such cause let go his hold. I do not 
mean to dwell on such trials. Every faithful 
clergyman has them, and I simply could not think 
of that five-parted duty without having the image 
of the tender hand come into my mind. 

But if the five ordinary pastorates suggest the 
hand that laid hold on duty so faithfully, what 
shall I say of Burkehaven? Ah! That was a 
love-gift, hung by a golden chain about his neck, 
and resting on his heart. Every one knew that 
this Church was named with Mr. Goodrich's saint's 
name for love of Mr. Goodrich himself. And this, 
I think, more than any other Church where he ever 

[21] 



ministered, was to him a window through which 
he looked into Heaven, and a place of entering 
into the joy of his Lord. 

But wherever he went, and whatever he did, 
our friend was ever the meek man, asking little 
for himself. His choice of Nashua as the place 
of his first independent work was most character- 
istic. I remember, as if it were yesterday, sitting 
in the Chapel of Trinity College, on an October 
Sunday afternoon in 1870, and hearing Bishop 
Niles preach his first sermon there after his Conse- 
cration as Bishop of New Hampshire. He stood 
at the desk and gave out this Text. — / will tarry 
at Epkesus until Pentecost, for a great door and effect- 
ual is opened unto me, and there are many adver- 
saries (1 Cor. xvi, 8, 9). And there are many 
adversaries, he repeated, — There are many, many 
adversaries. One of the hearers of that sermon 
was a lovely Christian woman, of strong character 
and deep devotion, — I like to remember that she 
was a daughter of the Church in Vermont, born 
and reared in the village of Norwich, to which I 
have been ministering for some years from Hanover, 
New Hampshire, — and this my dear friend, Mrs. 
Rogers, went home and reported the sermon 
faithfully to young Mr. Goodrich, then a lodger in 
her house, and Assistant-minister of Trinity Parish, 
Hartford. Mr. Goodrich was considering three 

[22] 



offers of independent work. Two of them were 
easy and promising. Nashua was difficult, and 
more dreadfully unhopeful than it would be fitting 
for me here to tell. The sermon about the many 
adversaries found a mind prepared. As any one 
might have known who knew him, our friend took 
the hard place. Two years and a half after he 
went to Nashua, I saw him there, and spent a 
night in his house. It was the only time I ever 
heard him complain of anything in all my forty- 
five years' knowledge of him, but then it seemed 
as if his heart was broken, and I saw his tears. 
But let it be noted that the burden of his grief 
was not that he had suffered, but that he thought 
that he had failed. He seemed to himself to have 
been ineffective for God, and that was the one 
thing that he could not bear. I said to him, " 'The 
blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,' and 
you will find it so." Bishop Niles, if he were here 
to-day, would tell you that I never spoke a truer 
word. The meek man, who asked nothing for 
himself, but that he might be of use somewhere, 
had done a work which was completely hidden 
from his own eyes, but the work was there. Because 
he took that hard place, and suffered there, in his 
way, it was never any such hard place again. 

Of the five years in Lancaster I know but little, 
and of the five years in Windsor, Conn., I shall 

[23] 



tell you only what a dear friend said to me, a few 
weeks ago, the Rector of that Parish for some 
twenty-eight years past. He had been telling me 
why Mr. Goodrich found the work there in some 
ways depressing, and then he added something 
like this, — "But when Mr. Goodrich came back 
here for a visit, and I saw the outpouring of love 
with which one of the men of this Parish met him, 
I really felt a little pang of jealousy." I allow 
myself to tell that story, because I can add that 
my friend who thus accused himself of jealousy 
is deeply known to me as one of the most generous 
of men, a man without self-seeking, a man who 
would be most strict with himself not to harbor 
one thought of anything mean. In talking with 
an intimate friend he did not struggle to avoid a 
word which a stranger might misunderstand. He 
knew that / would understand! Indeed I do. I, 
too, have seen Mr. Goodrich come back to his old 
Parish, — with me it was Claremont, of course, — 
and have said to myself with a sorrow of heart 
which, I am sure, was not a mean sorrow, "Oh! I 
can never be to these good people, these best and 
dearest people in my Parish, what their old Pastor 
was to them!" No! that pang which a pastor 
feels, when he sees that he can never do for some 
of his people so much as another man has done for 
them, is not necessarily a mean sorrow at all. 

[24] 



Both my Windsor friend and I were very thankful 
that our people had had such a man as Mr. Good- 
rich to love, and that they had loved him well. 

I have said that our "meek man" asked little 
for himself except to be useful somewhere. In 
Claremont he began to face one special trial, 
which went further in Littleton, — the painful sense 
of narrowing capacity and opportunity. Our 
friend had never spared himself, and even in Clare- 
mont he began to be visited with a certain failure 
of brain and nerves, which cut him off from lines 
of usefulness in which he had been edifying and 
helpful in his former ministry. While judgment, 
memory, reasoning power, and every other mental 
gift except this one gift remained entirely unim- 
paired, the power of formal composition, such as the 
writing of new sermons, was taken absolutely away. 
That was what made him ask for such a change as 
that of leaving Claremont and going to Littleton. 
And then after a deeply useful pastorate in Littleton, 
which Littleton people remember most thankfully, 
there came a time when that loving soul, who never 
suffered any least impairment of the pastoral 
heart that was in him, had to face the fact that 
God did not call him to what men name "effective 
work" any more at all, but just to the simplicity 
of quiet rest. Through all he was the same gentle, 
loving, unselfish soul, asking for nothing anxiously 

[25] 



and demandingly, taking every gift of God sweetly, 
meeting with the same serenity the things that 
the world considers to be distresses and the things 
which the world reckons as matters of gain and 
good cheer. 

S. Ignatius of Antioch, a Bishop and Martyr of 
the beginning of the second century, was so fond 
of urging upon his people that Christians received 
the life of our Lord Jesus Christ in their Baptism, 
and were partners in all their life with the Saviour 
of the world, that these people of Antioch came to 
call their Bishop by a Greek title, Theoph6ros, 
meaning "one that carries God within him." That 
same phrase well describes our friend, as he was 
in those last quiet, happy years. He did not know 
that he was doing much. He never did know that 
about himself. But verily, when he thought that 
he could no longer preach and teach, he was a 
Master in Israel, preaching a Gospel most effect- 
ively, because he "carried God within him." 

He who does that cannot fail to be an effective 
teacher and guide. S. James closes this great 
chapter, in which he encourages us to meekness 
of wisdom, with a glorious description of the wis- 
dom which is from above, and which is, he might 
have added, so high that only the lowly can lay 
hold of it. That great wisdom, he tells us, is first 
pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, 

[26I 



full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and 
without hypocrisy. That was the wisdom of the 
brother whom we commemorate to-day, And well 
does S. James add that the fruit of righteousness is 
sown in peace of them that make peace. We have 
known it all. We have seen it with our eyes. 



[27 



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